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Friday, December 4, 2009

"Korea has not yet begun to develop its mobile technology":Google's Expansion Plans

The Joongang Daily carried a brief report today about Google's expansion plans in Korea. It noted the changes that Google is making to its home page. I discussed this in an earlier post that referred to Google's plans to "Koreanize" its home page.
What really caught my eye about this latest article is the quote at the beginning, "Korea has not yet begun to develop its mobile technology." As readers of this blog will note, I agree with the basic sentiment expressed by this quote. As Cho Won-gyu, the head of Google Korea's research and development suggests, with the introduction of more smart phones next year, Korean consumers will begin to learn about many broadband internet applications from which they have been shielded to date. Take for example video. Although Youtube is now the most widely used video service in South Korea, it is not yet widely used on mobile phones. Now that the iPhone is already here and numerous Android phone models are coming next year, that is about to change. Given Google's strong array of web-based information services and their availability in Korean language versions, it is not too difficult to predict what will happen in Korea's mobile market next year. Google will gain market share for all of its internet services, as Korea's customers become acquainted with them via the new Android phones that will probably come to dominate the mobile market here.